The real reason why Castro threatens to refuse the assistance is that he wants to continue diverting humanitarian assistance to the military and Communist Party elite and to the government dollar stores inaccessible to most Cubans. Lamentably, the humanitarian assistance also helps to keep open the infamous escuelas en el campo, the schools in the countryside decried by Pope John Paul II.

While some blame the food crisis on mismanagement aggravated by drought, food shortages began when Castro imposed a Marxist command economy almost 40 years ago. It is not simply a question of mismanagement; shortages and communist economics go hand in hand, as the Poles, North Koreans, and Russians will attest.

Humanitarian assistance did not end food shortages in Central Europe. The end of communist rule did that. Channeling assistance through the regime simply will strengthen Castro's repressive apparatus and vitiate the need for economic reform.

Given the lack of a civil society in Cuba (an independent media, labor, or civic organizations that could monitor the distribution), The Herald was right to insist on full accountability. Only direct distribution to the Cuban people by the donors will ease malnutrition and suffering.

But the world community should do more. Those such as the Canadians and the French, who favor constructive engagement with Castro, need to use their commercial ties as well as their development and humanitarian assistance to pressure Castro into lifting restrictions on the right to fish, farm, and sell. That would generate food for hard-working and proud people who shouldn't have to depend on international charity.

The U.S. Congress, which approved measures to promote democracy and human rights in Cuba, must insist that any U.S. assistance be tied to a relaxation of restrictions on production and sale of food by Cuban farmers. By refusing to insist on real economic reform, those who blame the shortages on the U.S. embargo help to keep in place the disastrous system that is responsible for the shortages.

Castro's rejection of a transparent process demonstrates his use of food distribution as a political tool. Castro diverts donations of medicine and antibiotics to clinics and hospital wards set aside for dollar-paying foreign patients where Cubans are not allowed. How is channeling assistance under those conditions going to help the Cuban people?

With Mengistu Haile Mariam's regime in Ethiopia, the international community insisted on distributing aid directly to the people. After a horrible earthquake in Nicaragua, millions of dollars of foreign aid disappeared into the pockets of the Somozas. Most recently in North Korea, food aid failed to persuade the regime of the need to spend its meager resources on food and not on missiles.

Over the past five years, the U.S. government has licensed more than $150 million in humanitarian assistance to Cuba, more than all other countries combined; Cuban Americans alone have sent millions in remittances and care packages. But Cuban Americans insist that while ensuring that assistance reaches the Cuban people, every effort should be made to deny resources to Castro and his repressive apparatus.

Simply said, let's not have American aid fall into the black hole where billions of Soviet subsidies disappeared. U.S. taxpayers shouldn't take the place of Soviet patrons.

With no Cold War, some say that U.S.-Cuba policy is an anomaly; but the real anomaly is the continuation of a communist regime in Cuba. The Pope urged Cuba to ``open itself up to the world, and . . . the world open itself up to Cuba.''

Unfortunately, although the world continues to open itself up to Cuba, Castro, as this episode demonstrates, has yet to open up Cuba to the world. He has yet to allow the existence of civil society, opening Cuba to the Cubans.